Pill to beat Alzheimer’s

A DAILY 10p vitamin pill could prevent millions of people being struck down by Alzheimer’s disease.

Research has found that vitamin B can help protect the brain from dementia []

Research has found that vitamin B can help protect the brain from dementia.

A large daily dose of a combination of three types of vitamin B has been shown to slow mental decline in the elderly who suffer from mild memory problems.

The breakthrough could lead to a simple new treatment for people at risk of dementia which would be the “holy grail” of research into Alzheimer’s.

The finding is seen as so significant that yesterday researchers announced a major new study into how effective the vitamins are at protecting against the disease.

The trial, involving around 1,000 older people in Britain, will build on previous findings that B vitamins can help prevent brain shrinkage with age.

They will be given carefully measured doses of vitamin B12, B6 and B9 – folic acid – with the aim of finding out whether boosting levels of the vitamins can delay the onset of Alzheimer’s or other forms of dementia.

A large daily dose of a combination of three types of vitamin B has been shown to slow mental decline in the elderly who suffer from mild memory problems

If the trial is successful, it is hoped that a high-dose vitamin B pill could be widely prescribed to those with mild memory loss in as little as five years.

More than 800,000 people in the UK have dementia,
with around 60 per cent suffering from Alzheimer’s. The number of cases
is set to double within a generation.

A year
ago, the same researchers showed that taking the vitamin B combination
reduced brain shrinkage by 30 per cent in 266 people aged 70 and over.
All had mild cognitive impairment (MCI), a pre-dementia condition
characterised by poor memory.

The vitamins also appeared to sharpen episodic memory – the ability to recall specific past events in time and place.

The
effects were linked to homocysteine, a protein molecule. Homocysteine
is raised when B vitamins are deficient and is also associated with
dementia as people with greater homocysteine levels experience more
brain shrinkage in old age.

In the original trial, better results were seen in patients who started out with higher levels of homocysteine.

In
memory tests, those given B vitamins were 69 per cent more likely to
remember words from a list than those who were untreated.

Now the researchers want to know whether reducing homocysteine with B vitamins can prevent dementia.

They
have previously warned that the extremely high dose of B vitamins in
the trial could not be obtained from a normal diet or standard
supplements and should be treated like a drug.

The
trial will use a “dementia scale” which assesses thinking ability.
People suffering from a mild cognitive impairment typically score around
0.5.

Dr Celeste de Jager, from Oxford
University, who outlined plans for the two-year study yesterday at the
British Science Festival at the University of Bradford, said: “If we
could keep people to 0.5 or get them back to zero, that’s what we would
be aiming at.” Professor Robin Jacoby, research author and Alzheimer’s
Society trustee, said: “These studies add weight to the argument that
vitamin B is good for our brains.

“However,
people shouldn’t rush out and empty the shelves of vitamin B tablets.
More research is needed to establish if it could prevent dementia.”

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Natural way to beat dementia

AROUND 1.5 million people in Britain suffer from age-related memory loss, or “mild cognitive impairment”.

This starts gradually where people misplace keys or forget their shopping.

But half will have developed Alzheimer’s or another form of dementia within five years.

However, the vitamin B complex has been shown to help protect against MCI.

Vitamin B helps keep an amino acid called homocysteine at a healthy level.

Raised
homocysteine has been linked with an increased risk of Alzheimer’s and a
faster rate of brain shrinkage in the elderly. The vitamin is found
naturally in a wide range of foods such as bananas, beans, meat,
wholegrains and spinach.

Getting enough of the
other vitamin Bs is not a problem if you eat reasonably well, but B12 is
harder as you get older because it is not absorbed as efficiently into
the body.

Vitamin B12 sources include meat and fish.

Vegetarians who don’t have any milk or fish in their diet are also likely to become deficient.

Folic acid and vitamin B6 are found in asparagus, lentils, most beans, and leafy green vegetables.